Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I

Michael S. Neiberg is Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and Harold K. Johnson Visiting Professor at the US Army War College from 2010-2012.

[A] fascinating book. -- A. W. Purdue Times Higher Education Supplement 20110428 Neiberg expertly mines letters and diaries of European and American diplomats, authors, journalists, and expatriates to show that among "ordinary people," no one wanted WWI...Neiberg illustrates how a select group of men in Austria-Hungary, and in Germany, used the assassination to advance their expansionist programs. Publishers Weekly 20110502 This book stunned me, in a positive way...For those versed in public choice economics, and behavioral public choice, Neiberg's account is much more intuitive than the popular analyses one often hears. Definitely recommended. -- Tyler Cowen marginalrevolution.com 20110511 Dance of the Furies, becomes at once the new pinnacle in brief studies of the coming of the First World War...Dance of the Furies is far-ranging, adroitly written, and consistently fascinating...[Neiberg] uses an incredibly wide array of contemporary sources to shore up his point that when the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian teenager Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, virtually nobody thought the event would lead to general war...Dance of the Furies brings its readers right to the edge of that Armageddon but does not plunge. We hear tales of bank collapses and hate-propaganda, and we see the idealism of all combatants quickly shredded, but the epic carnage and attrition, the big-scale generalship and diplomacy, all lies ahead when this superb volume concludes. Instead what Michael Neiberg has given us is a vast chorus of disbelieving voices, the shopkeepers, professors, poets, and farmers of half a dozen countries voicing their increasing alarm as their nations slipped toward the unthinkable. Assembling and synthesizing such a vast amount of material would be impressive enough; that Neiberg makes it all so darkly compelling is testament to a writing talent the discipline of history badly needs. Future studies of the First World War